


If You Aren’t Careful, You’ll Spend Half Your Life Worrying About Death

by HighlyOpinionatedNerd



Category: Gintama
Genre: Mid-life Crisis, My First Work in This Fandom, Yorozuya Family, don't really feel like I captured the style..., oh well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 18:52:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11629737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HighlyOpinionatedNerd/pseuds/HighlyOpinionatedNerd
Summary: Gintoki experiences something of a mid-life crisis





	If You Aren’t Careful, You’ll Spend Half Your Life Worrying About Death

“Holy shit,” Gintoki said quietly from where he sat at his desk.

The other members of the Yorozuya ignored him. It had been a quiet day, without any customers to speak of, and they were enjoying a little down time. Kagura was watching some soap opera on the tv. Shinpachi was bustling around, catching up on some cleaning. Sadaharu was taking a nap, which admittedly was what he did pretty much every day.

_“Holy shit _,”__ Gintoki repeated, a little louder this time.

“Don’t complain, Gin-san,” Shinpachi admonished sternly. “You’ve been putting off that paperwork for weeks now. Just get it over with already.”

“Hm?” Gintoki looked up, seeming distracted. “I am working on it! See, it’s right here! It’s just…” He trailed off, looking back at the papers in front of him.

“Just what?”

“They want to know my age,” he explained. “So I was thinking about it, and… I don’t know for sure, but I think I’m twenty-six.”

“How can you not know your own age for sure?” Kagura asked from across the room.

“Well, y’know, I didn’t exactly have a model childhood. None of us at the dojo really knew our real ages.” He leaned back in his chair. “Twenty-six. When the actual hell did I get this old?”

“What are you getting so worked up for, Gin-san? Twenty-six isn’t that old.”

“Yeah, Gin-chan, you’ve got practically your whole life ahead of you.”

Gintoki nodded. “You guys are right, I guess,” he said. Yet somehow, he didn’t look entirely convinced. “Hey, uh, I just remembered, I have to go out for a while.”

“What? You said you’d finish that paperwork!”

“I will, I will! I’ll be back in a while. Nobody burn the place down while I’m gone, or anything like that.”

He quickly put on his boots, grabbed his scooter helmet, and left. Shinpachi and Kagura exchanged quizzical looks, but decided not to make a big deal of it.

“He’s not going to finish that paperwork any time soon,” Kagura said, reaching for the remote.

 

“Zura, are you in there?” Gintoki shouted, knocking loudly on the door of the Joui’s latest safe house. “I need to talk to you. Oi, open up, Zura!”

After a few more moments of banging his fist against the door, he heard approaching footsteps. Several locks were undone from the inside, and the door opened.

“Oh, it’s you, Elizabeth,” Gintoki said flatly. Something about the giant, penguin-like creature always freaked him out a little. “I need to talk to Zura, is he home?”

Elizabeth reached behind himself and pulled out a signpost that bore the message, _how did you know where we were hiding out?_

Gintoki shrugged. “Easy. Just look for the sleaziest house in the neighborhood. You know, the one with all its windows boarded up and suspicious-looking men keeping watch around it at all hours of the day. You guys are really predictable actually; I’m surprised the Shinsengumi hasn’t figured it out yet.”

Elizabeth flipped the sign over. _What do you want_ , it said.

“I already told you, I need to talk to Zura,” Gintoki told him, starting to get annoyed. He usually tried not to think about where those signposts came from, or how the writing got there.

Elizabeth moved to the side, apparently willing to let him in. He gestured to a doorway at the end of a long, narrow hallway.

“Thanks,” Gintoki said, stepping inside. There weren’t many of Katsura’s followers inside, and he was able to proceed down the indicated hallway without incident.

“Oi, Zura,” he said, pushing the second door open, “are you in there?”

The room he entered was typical of what he’d come to expect from one of Katsura’s hideouts. It was small and sparsely furnished, but clean and brightly lit. Katsura himself was sitting in the middle of the floor, studying one of several open scrolls littered around him.

He looked up as Gintoki entered the room. He didn’t seem very surprised at the intrusion.

“It’s not Zura,” he said, “it’s Katsura.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Gintoki shut the door behind himself and sat down opposite his friend.

“It’s rare to get a visit from you, Gintoki. What can I do for you?”

“Listen, Zura, I was doing some thinking earlier, and I think I’m twenty-six.”

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura! And there’s no way you’re already twenty-six, Gintoki. That would make me-”

“Twenty-seven, yeah. At least, going off of what we assumed about our ages when we were living at Shoyo’s.”

Katsura blinked, his brow furrowing. “That doesn’t sound right. We can’t be more than twenty-three, twenty-four at most. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I did the math like three times.” Gintoki ran a hand through his curly hair, frowning. “When did we get this old?”

“I have no idea.”

They lapsed into silence, each preoccupied with their own thoughts.

“We haven’t even really achieved anything yet,” Katsura muttered, beginning to look concerned. “We lost the war, and we’re not any closer to taking back the Earth...What if we live our whole lives without accomplishing anything meaningful?”

“That’s what you’re worried about?”

“You aren’t?”

“Not really. I’m just...I don’t know how to be an adult. I don’t know how to be responsible and make good choices. And I have those kids to look after now…”

They stared at each other, both genuinely worried now.

“That does it,” Katsura said decisively, reaching for his scroll again.

“What are you doing?” Gintoki asked.

“I’m moving my plans ahead. Who knows what might happen if we wait too long!”

“Wait, Zura! Let’s not do anything rash, here! After all, you’re not as young as you used to be.”

“That’s exactly it, Gintoki! We have to do something now, while we still can! You could come with us and help out, you know.”

Gintoki shook his head vehemently. “No way, man. I’m gonna go home right now, and hopefully never fight again.” He got to his feet. “Be careful out there, Zura.”

“Mhm, sure,” Katsura responded absently, not even bothering to look up.

 

By the time Gintoki made it back home, the sun had begun to set. The streetlights throughout Edo came alive, lighting the way for the evening pedestrians. There always seemed to be a steady flow of foot traffic in town, no matter what the hour.

This particular evening, though, Gintoki had a hard time convincing himself that the people on the streets weren’t watching him, or following him. That it was just the shadows, playing tricks on his mind.

He practically ran up the stairs to the Yorozuya’s apartment, and didn’t relax until the door had closed behind him.

“Whew...Kagura, Shinpachi, I’m home.”

“Where have you been, Gin-san?” Shinpachi’s voice called from down the hallway. “We were beginning to get worried.”

“I just, uh, had a quick errand to run,” Gintoki said, walking into the living room. “Hope you guys haven’t eaten yet, because I brought food.” He held up a large carry-out box.

“Yay!” Kagura exclaimed, jumping up and hurrying to the table.

Shinpachi frowned. “Gin-san, that’s a lot of food. Wasn’t that expensive…?”

“Don’t worry about it, Pachi-boy. Let’s just enjoy it!”

“Um, ok…” Shinpachi sat down hesitantly at the table, opposite the excitedly bouncing Kagura.

Gintoki began reaching into the bag, pulling out food, placing item after item on the table. “Here, eat up.”

“Wow Gin-chan, that really is a lot of food,” Kagura said skeptically. “Is there...something on your mind?”

“Whaaaaat? No, why would you think that?”

“She’s right, Gin-san. You’ve been acting weird ever since this afternoon.” Shinpachi cocked his head to the side, thinking. “Does this have anything to do with what you were talking about earlier?”

Gintoki twitched his head irritatedly. “I said it was nothing, didn’t I?”

“You’re not acting like it was nothing,” Kagura pointed out. “Gin-chan, you know you can talk to us, right? We’re here for you. If you need to talk, we’ll listen.”

Gintoki opened his mouth as if to protest some more, but then shut it again. He sighed. “Yeah, ok. You got me. I guess I overreacted a little.”

“I still don’t understand what the big deal is. Is there something special about that number, Gin-san?”

“No, no, nothing like that. It’s just….I never expected to live this long.” Gintoki’s eyes were fixed on the table, refusing to look up at Shinpachi and Kagura. “It’s silly, I know. Sorry.”

“It’s not silly,” Shinpachi said softly. “It’s because of the war, right?”

“Yeah, mostly. Hardly anyone I’ve ever known lived far past twenty. I almost didn’t make it out, myself. All I’ve ever thought about was surviving, day by day. Suddenly here I am, twenty-six, and absolutely no plans for the future. I guess I just panicked.”

Kagura reached over and put her hand on Gintoki’s arm, forcing him to look up at her. “You aren’t at war anymore, Gin-chan. And you’re not alone. We don’t have to have any big plans. As long as we’re together, things will work out.”

Shinpachi nodded. “It’s fine if things stay as they are, isn’t it?”

“You guys…” Gintoki smiled. “Heh, I guess you’re right. Sorry I got carried away.”

“It’s fine, really. Now, let’s eat, before all this food gets cold!”

“Ahh, Kagura, you can’t just steal things off other people’s plates!”

“First come, first serve, Pachi-boy.”

“Not you too, Gin-san! Give that back!”

Outside the Yorozuya’s apartment, stars began appearing in the darkening sky. Somewhere a night bird began singing. The people went about their business, unfalteringly. The world kept turning, and time kept moving forward.

Gintoki decided that that was fine by him.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to write this as if it was an episode of the show, and I'm not entirely happy with how it came out, but I still really like the concept, so I wanted to share it anyway. Thank you for reading!


End file.
